The "hack test" of a mock election using Diebold voting equipment earlier this week in Leon County, Florida --- in which results of the election were completely flipped from 2-6 to 7-1 without even a trail of evidence left behind --- has continued to send shockwaves from Florida to Ohio to California and everywhere else in between.

The Director of Elections in Leon County, Ion Sancho reportedly proclaimed, after the stunning results of last Tuesday's test, that he would never use Diebold voting machines in any election in the county again.

Television news coverage began hitting last night in Tallahassee, the Florida state capital, which also happens to be in Leon County. And in a remarkable admission, Sancho now says he believes that such a hack occurred in the 2000 Presidential Election in Volusia County, Florida.

Elections officials in Volusia County, by the way, are currently in the final throes of their decision of whether to go with Diebold's hackable voting machines, or whether they will go in a different direction. We may have more on that later today.

States and Counties across the country are continuing their last minute scramble to make decisions about new voting equipment many of them hope to acquire and have paid for by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002. The deadline for that decision is Jan 1, 2006 and yet there are virtually no reliable Federal standards for any of the available Voting Machines currently on the market.

Litigation was filed against Diebold, Inc. earlier this week in Federal District Court in a Class Action Securities Fraud complaint based, in part, on their attempts at disguising the vulnerabilities and flaws of their Voting Machine equipment from investors.

To the cyberstreets!!
The following was a brief version of what I threw at CNN, MSNBC, CBSnews and Washington Post as well as Kerry's online site, MoveOnPac, and the DNC after this story came out. Everyone that is sick and outraged at the corruption of American democracy should likewise start hammering those same folks to demand some answers.

"I hate to keep bringing this up, but if the most important thing the media can find for headline news is the Ashlee Simpson collapse and they choose to overlook this real story of critical National importance. What kind of news
organization are they? Is the Ashlee Simpson story just so much more important that the breach of the American
political voting process?

The real story that should be making mega, mega headline news... WESH TV of Orlando

Elections Official: Some Voting Machines Could Be Hacked

Voting machines used in four Central Florida counties might be flawed.
There's new evidence that computer hackers could change election results without anyone
knowing about it, WESH 2 News reported.

and so on to Sancho's conclusion.....

"This raises serious questions as to the state of Florida's certification program," Sancho said.

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Do you know what this means!!??? How about leading a charge to shake some trees to get their priorities straight and report the real news of actual earth shaking consequence!! Time to demand a real investigation to find out what happened.
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And that is for all of us that care about Democracy and justice in America.
Onward!
Gh

It is amazing to think that the world would be a completely different place right now if they had reported the fact that counties in florida that were about 90% democrats ended up voting 90% replublican. How does this not make the news unless... they control the media? Nah... that would never happen. Like they would want anything to do with Fox or PBS.

We need to take the issue out of partisan hands. Something on the model of The League of Women Voters, say ‘The League of American Voters’ representing citizens interested in the single issue of Fair Elections. The technology exists to make voting machines virtually hack-proof but they have no constituency, no lobbyists. Nobody is advocating for the dollars and the will to get them installed. The people in power (either party) have little incentive to invest in elections that might have a different outcome. We’ll have to force it on them.

After getting more secure voting, I’d also like the ‘The League of American Voters’ to take up running REAL debates instead of the charades we’ve been getting. And later, the big fight, redistricting

Just wanted to correct a typo. Mr. Sancho's first name is Ion Sancho. He's a helluva nice guy too. I worked the polls in Leon County in 2000 and met him then. Here's the election website biohttp://www.leonfl.org/el...ct/MeetTheSupervisor.htm
How about thanking him? He could use the support for taking a dangerous stance here at Jeb's capitolvote@leoncountyfl.gov

If they stole the election, that´s treason. Treason followed by falsifying evidence to put our troops an immoral and losing war. Treason on top of treason with war crimes in between. What Bush did to Iraq is not for American jurisdiction. He should be tried in America for treason, and tried again at the Hague for international war crimes.

If you want a thorough analysis of the so called "election" 2004, check out the findings presented by Kathy Dopp, Vice President for US Count Votes. This is a non-partisan, non profit organization comprised of mostly volunteer Ph.D. level computer scientists, mathematicians and statisticians. This group has disclosed glaring irregularities and anomalies in 2004, especially in Ohio.

Let's not kid ourselves that anyone in any part of OUR government is going to hold BushCo accountable for their treasons. Remember what happened to Mussolini when the Italian people had finally had enough of THEIR fascist dictator? I say we throw a little "necktie party"!

Nothing.....nothing is as important as this! What I can't understand is why it's taken five years to arrive at the conclusion the elections were rigged? It was so obvious in 2000 anyone with sense could see. I wish these criminal acts are proven and the evil perpetrators (all of them and not just the small time flunkies) are imprisoned or better yet hanged.
It's the democracy, stupids!

What leads me to wonder is what the mentality of Al Gore and John Kerry was after the election. They both knew that the Repubes had stolen the election and at the time there was reports of the election being rigged. Were they blackmailed into silence? It might not be far off from looking at recent events.

#15, I feel certain that Kerry cut some sort of deal with the GOP. I feel this way because of how fast he backed out of any recounts and conceded the election. The generally kind treatment by the media towards Kerry up to now reaffirms my feelings.

Remember the 60's? A lot of the protests began with the universities. If you go to college it would be great if you could stir the campus's(sic) up on the voting issues. Afterall this affects both parties. We need hundreds of thousands of people marching on DC about this very issue AND NO OTHER.
We should put both parties on notice that either we make the system totally transparent or vote all of the bastards out. Paper ballots may be slower but you can't f--k them up. Or even those punch ballots can be made to perform better. How about sharper punches?

I doubt they cut a deal because it's not the repuckheads style. They're more about attacking than they are about making deals. Does it seem right to you that a guy like Al Gore and John Kerry were both bought out. I mean it's not totally far off but at the same time why would they bother buying out what they can threaten into submission without paying a cent. Just take Tom Delay for example.

I just made a stupid comment. How are we actually going to vote the bastards out? I guess we really are screwed... and you really can't be called conspiracy theories...because Leon county Florida just proved it..Damn...what do we do?

Nobody needs to worry about voting anyone out......the neocon cretins who run the voting companies are enemies to us all, we only need to worry about criminal convictions.

Taking it to court and all the way to the top....if Diebold goes down for instance, we can force through HR 550 and then have normal elections again.

Well normal in that we use paper ballots......there will always be fraud or vendors trying to buy democracy...

BUT that is why the neocons don't want anyone to look under the hood...they'll see that republicans/democrats stealing everything is all for show, to dwindle the movement...and that they are the ones who control the elections and want to eliminate all opposition. Put in their own candidates...just like 2000.

I live in Florida...this story made prime time drive on a top radio station tonight complete with interview with spokesperson for BBV !!! It was shocking for the listeners. They were calling in so fast the moderator couldn't keep up!!!
Emma

The Diebold Voting system has another VERY SERIOUS ISSUE with it being able TO BE HACKED, and Beverly Harris had pointed it out many times on her BlackBoxVoting.org website.

DieBold's GEMS software database, which is used in the final tabulation process, can easily be hacked using a program as common as Microsoft Access, which comes standard with Microsoft Office. Anyone using MS Access can open the GEMS databse, and swap the vote totals for any two given candidates. Nobody would have the slightest clue the totals were changed.

If you look at Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell's website, you will see that this problem has been known by Blackwell back in Nov 2003, as shown in the below Nov 2003 document. The problem was reported over and over again, and yet nothing was done by Blackwell. Finally AFTER THE NOV 2004 ELECTION, there was mention of using a program called "Digital Guardian" as a means to fix the problem. So this SERIOUS SECURITY ISSUE was not handled until AFTER the election ... a FULL YEAR LATER !!!

See the below 3 PDF documents from Blackwell's website, and you can see how the issue was pointed out, but not addressed until JANUARY 2005 !!!

Seems to me that both Gore and Kerry are sort of "old school" gentlemen who try to take the high ground. Neither wanted to seem like sore losers. And although we now know that both elections were stolen, we also know that almost half the country actually did vote for Bush both times, as hard as that is to fathom. Bush and those who enable him are neither "compassionate" or "conservative", they are the epitome of how the anti-Christ would behave.

Until many more people wake up, our best hope is to get active locally and shine light through every avenue open to us.

I too am a Floridian and so ashamed for the last 5 years. I send e-mails to everyone I can think of, just think - open your eyes! Finally!! It's out in the open!! I remember that Al Gore did fight the fight, count and recount. The repubs called him names, like sour grapes, can't take defeat, etc. I'll never believe he flipped for a bribe. Now Kerry is another story. He was prime for an investigation, especially in Ohio, but he caved before the election was even warm. I even believe that if Kerry stood his ground, maybe Ohio would not have been swept under the carpet so quickly. Just maybe the Ohio results would have had a different outcome. Now Kerry wants another chance in 08 - he will NEVER have my vote! I will do my level best to see that his name is not on the ballot! Many thanks to Sanchez and Volusia for the perseverence in bringing honor and respect back to Florida!

Gore's people took the fight to the U.S. Supreme Court. They had no chance there, because the SCOTUS make a political (not judicial) decision to overturn a state court...in violation of the principle (embedded in the Electoral College) that states have dominion over all electoral processes. Gore really did all he could do; the cards were stacked against him.

Kerry has no excuse. He thought it was all about himself and about outcomes, instead of about the legitimacy of the process. Americans were cheated, and Kerry had a civic responsibility to confront that fact. He failed miserably. I believe he was afraid of the "sore loser" tag, which is just pathetic neo-con rhetoric, and that this would hurt his chances for 2008.

Kerry also thought that even if he fought for Ohio and won, his presidency would still be tarnished by the fact that Bush would still have won in the popular vote (by vote flipping, of course). It didn't occur to him, apparently, that John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, and George W. Bush were inaugurated after losing the popular vote. And, if Illinois had been honest in 1960, Richard Nixon would have been the popular vote winner (though Kennedy would still have won in the Electoral College).

Kerry is smart, and has many statesmanlike qualities. He'd have made a good president, I believe. But he's a selfish man who put his own interests ahead of the good of the country.

More than half the country has known for five years that the 2000 election was stolen by the GOP and the Bush Family with their accomplice, the US unSupreme Court. Now, what can we do about it? Can we throw Bush out of office and install Al Gore in his rightful office of President? Can we charge all those involved in treason against our democracy? Can we make GBush pay restitution to all of America and the world for the crimes committed against us all? In a just world and a true democracy that is exactly what should happen. Unfortunately we no longer live in a just nation and a just world. God Help Us All.

I skimmed over the story yesterday and went back and re-read it today. After I did I started asking why? Why the hell do they have this kind of system and access on these machines. There is no reason at all to need to change votes. It can not be considered a security oversight also. It required extra coding to add it and hardware to put the card readers in. In other words - tax payers have footed the bill to have their basic right of this democracy taken from them. That is horrible!

For Stitch: Of course, you're right. I should have written, "Gore fought the battle all the way to the SCOTUS."

The central theme, I think, is that Gore did everything he reasonably could have done short of defiantly marching to the White House and taking over the Oval Office. Kerry, on the other hand, gave up immediately...never considering that his responsibility TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE was to make certain the votes were counted fairly. He only considered HIS OWN SELFISH INTERESTS.

Does anyone know what can be done to members of the Supreme court from 2000? Does congress have the right to impeach any of them? Certainly congress should've done something to Scalia(sp) for not recuseing himself when his buddy Cheney's case came before the court.
I always thought the way our founding fathers set up the government was a stroke of genius... but I've heard it said that most governments don't last 200 years...I think we now realize that it's happened to our government too...we finally found a situation that if the same party controls all branches of government , that with a little finessing that party could take complete control . We literally have no redress. Protesters are arrested and are put so far away from members of our own government under the guise of terrorism, that we are prisoners in our own country.
Isn't it terrible that there are about 280 million of us and we are constrained and have turned over our freedom to 537 people?...Those checks and balances
are no longer working...

Daddy Bush and his crook of a lawyer Baker ,unlawfully by taking over states rights and placing eleciton in hands of his cronies on supreme court to select baby george.and it has been hell to pay ever since.They have stole two last elections.wrecked the whole country.George is not capable of operating lemonade stand,let alone president of America.Name one thing he has not screwed up????

I say give Iraq our new voting machines or trade them for a few thousand bottles of thier purple ink and some paper ballot's.Then we could elect and not select a real president,replace baby poo,or george the chimp!!!

With large corperations owning so called news media and working george like a puppet they keep public in dark most of time.I think the dike is springing so many holes george is running out of lie's to cover all his crooks.Look out for the flood.

"Can a Republican even WIN a presidential election without stealing it???"

Probably not (though I'd think that McCain might have a good chance).

When you couple what is going on with these diabolical Diebold cheat-boxes, coupled with widespread minority disenfranchisement (which is a widespread pre-existing crime, and just as bad), It's lowering the Democrat vote in a very monumental way.

With all of this going on, is it any wonder that half the people in America don't feel hopeful enough to bother voting?

For Cee: Believe it or not, the SCOTUS leaves questions of conflicts-of-interest up to the justice with the apparent conflict to decide.

Scalia said he had no conflict in the Cheney matter. When asked if he was the best judge of that, he said he was. If he had admitted to a conflict and recused himself, that would have been tantamount to admitting that partisanship plays a role in his decision-making...the whole world knows this is the case, but the SCOTUS policy allows a justice to pretend otherwise.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if Congress passed a law requiring matters of potential conflict-of-interest by a SCOTUS justice be submitted to the entire court for judgment. I suspect the court would rule it un-Constitutional, invoking the separation of powers.